…But ticks should be gone by now. Typically, they hate the cold. But apparently this has been a strange year.
“We know snow insulates,” explains Rick Ostfeld, an ecologist with the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies in the Hudson Valley town of Millbrook. He continues, “So it makes sense that it would be protective for ticks. READ

Powassan is a virus, related to West Nile flavivirus, and is transmitted by ticks. While it is rare—diagnosed less than 50 times in the past 10 years—it is scary because it can cause encephalitis, or a brain infection. More often, people who are infected develop no symptoms, but surveys show that about 1-4% of people in endemic areas show antibodies to the virus, indicating past exposure without illness. READ

Just when you think the tick-born diseases couldn’t get worse, the Center for Disease Control just released the data on the new Powassan (POW) virus that is now made its way here to the North Shore. READ